reaching into misery
by Bowtie
Summary: Anthology. 01. D/HR. It was only one step south of insanity, but then again, a love like theirs was never meant for the sane.


**Title: **death is the birth of something else

**Word Count:** 825

**Prompts:** 021. blink & 038. smoke & 17. devastating explosion

**Summary: **It was only one step south of insanity, but then again, a love like theirs was never meant for the sane.

* * *

So much haze, covering everything, engulfing the world in its breadth, choking, and stealing away every last breath. The flames danced with the smoke, a foggy mix of orange, red, blue and perhaps even purple. The colours seemed synergetic as he felt the heat of them through his other senses; red for the adrenaline and rage and purple for defeat.

He once dreamed of watching the world burn.

It would be such a precious image, he'd thought, to see the undefeatable licking away at every last shred of dignity and fight. _Fire, fire, fire_. He used to light matches, burst them with magic, keep the flames alight and floating around him. Their heat and light were his only company, the only companionship he'd ever longed for.

Draco Malfoy was, until very recently, a pyromaniac.

But it seemed so strange now to see something he'd loved so much destroy the only thing he'd ever loved more – karma? – he thought quickly, but no, there was no such thing. But it was ironic, or coincidental – either worked, really – that in the end, he would have nothing, stripped even of his own dignity.

_The world is burning, _he thought, the red flashing before him, dangerously, tauntingly. _My world is burning._

"Sir! Please move out of the critical area! You're still in danger there," was the call of a distant voice, urgent but demanding. Draco hated demanding plebeians; he was the boss, the pureblood and the wizard extraordinaire. The voice moved closer, but was still hazy, faraway. "Sir! Are you injured? Can you walk? You must leave the area!"

A blink of his eye was all it took.

Draco swung around, the rage of red and adrenaline blinding his vision. "Get out of my way," he growled to the manifestation of the voice. Nothing moved, though, nothing changed. Draco was arrogant, vain and everything else pureblood, but he was never stupid. Tonight would be a first, he realized lazily as he swung an angry, almost drunken fist towards the body of the voice.

"I have to go back in. Granger. _Granger!"_ he bellowed as he charged, back towards the heat, towards the unforgiving lash and burn of the flames as they danced. It was hot, so, so hot as he jumped through the breaks, few as they were. "Granger. _Granger!_ Hermione –" he yelped indignantly as a flame jumped at him, intent on swallowing him whole. "_Where the bloody hell are you_?"

It was too late, he knew. Knowing and accepting were always different things entirely, though – Draco was stuck on the former. "Granger! Can you hear me? Come towards my voice!"

No voice or staggering form answered his desperate call. No headstrong Granger came crawling through the flames, licked and burnt. Nothing but desperation and heat met with his unending calls – but he didn't stop. Not until he tripped and nearly dipped headfirst into a neighbouring flamepool.

"_Fuck_!" he cussed, too tired and hot to nurse his hurt foot. He'd figured his antagonist to be the rubble destroyed by the fires, but he chanced a quick look anyways.

He was right, in a way. It _was_ rubble left over and destroyed by the flames. That was all a body – _corpse_, now – was considered in this situation. The life demolished by the flames, leaving only the shell left. That was the technical explanation – but his heart had another, a billion other ways to see this particular piece of rubble.

_Her_ corpse, her body, her soul and her life – all gathered here, soot covering her troubled features, bloody scrapes on her arms and legs. Draco dropped to his knees, not realizing the small bundle of flames slowly building on his thighs. Did that even matter anymore? If he died – who would care? The only person who would was already there.

He gathered her battered body in his arms, careful not to let her slip from the sheen of sweat covering every inch of his body. It only took one of his large hands to smooth out the troubled expression marring her still-pretty features, but the black soot was impossible to clean.

"You promised you wouldn't ever leave me behind," he said, all accusatory. It was the only way he knew that could prevent him a complete breakdown. "Do I have to do everything for you?"

Rhetorical, all rhetorical. He _hated_, absolutely abhorred rhetorical speech and questions even more. But here he was, a hypocrite to the end, loving the very thing that protected and killed him. It didn't matter that she was gone, technically. Her body was still burning and hot, charred and smooth – he was selective in his admissions. Violently, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, cheeks and finally, bruised lips. His last farewell, he thought.

He blinked his hazy gray orbs shut then– not squeezed, just peacefully shut – as he crushed her burnt body to his burning one, incinerating them both a bright path into the next life.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
